Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a worldwide phenomenon that has devastating consequences to the patients and the society. The key to TBI management is the capability to control the intracranial pressure (ICP) through accurate monitoring the intracranial pressure, brain oxygenation, and brain temperature in the critical period. Any sudden increase in ICP have to be released either through the drainage of the excess cerebrospinal fluid or by chemotherapy. In a conventional TBI management, standalone pressure sensors, oxygen sensors, and temperature sensors in forms of miniaturized catheters are widely used in intensive care units. An external bolt system is typically used to attach the sensors to the skull to grasp the implanted catheters firmly in the patient's head. Custom data acquisition equipment may then be connected to the catheters directly through the bolt system for signal processing and real-time display of the sensed data from the sensors.
Practically, with the above-described approach, the inserted bolt size (thus the burr hole size) cannot be made small as it has to hold the 3 implanted catheters, and this extra space is more susceptible to bleeding and infection. Furthermore, the individual catheters are configured as a sensing device only, therefore signal conditioning and processing are done entirely by the external equipment.
A need therefore exists to provide a sensor device for intracranial neuromonitoring which seeks to overcome, or at least ameliorate, one or more of the deficiencies of the conventional art mentioned above. It is against this background that the present invention has been developed.